tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83104245235326479932018-03-02T11:22:08.174-06:00uneasyinthebigeasyOf the Different Modes of Acquiring the Non-Understanding of Things, or One Girl's Touching Journey Into Cynicism and MisanthropyStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-42153287683840308942013-05-14T20:47:00.004-05:002013-05-14T20:47:53.679-05:00PoemEnough --<br />It is time for me to disclose<br />That I know your kind well.<br />I can say your name in Latin,<br />Spanish, French, and Expletive<br />Especially the Expletive.<br /><br />When I was eleven, I<br />Dressed up in camouflage<br />And startled a bunch of strangers<br />By telling them an Invading Army<br />Had arrived.<br />"Don't just sit there - Do something!"<br />I intoned dramatically<br />To make sure they were all paying attention.<br />I took home the 4-H state entomology prize,<br />Two hundred dollars in federal treasury bonds<br />(I would cash it out in 1996 for a mere $174.)<br /><br />But, I digress. The important<br />Point here is that I have had enough<br />Of your random periplaneta<br />Tag games with my person.<br />I do not fly into you, squirming poisonously.<br />Maybe I crinkle my nose, if I see you,<br />But no court in the land<br />Would see that as assault.<br /><br />After a long day at work,<br />I would prefer to ignore your invading army<br />In my tropical city.<br />Let it rampage at will<br />Alive, as long as it leaves me alone.<br /><br />But in the last week, as if drawn to<br />My forbearance, you've seen fit<br />To invade my bath time, my kitchen,<br />To crawl across my ceiling fan too high<br />For me to catch and release so<br />I lie in my bed awake because I am<br />Too afraid I will awake in the morning<br />With your taste in my mouth<br />Or a stray leg in my hair.<br /><br />For $200 depreciating cash value<br />I once was the child expert<br />On how to kill you in<br />A myriad of painful ways.<br /><br />I re-declare war.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-61432275443548123772013-05-09T20:48:00.001-05:002013-05-09T20:48:23.544-05:00PoemI spend my days<br />Saying nothing<br />Because breathing <br />Steals my words.<br /><br />I move<br />Cutting corners, <br />Ghostlike, invisible <br />To the top of this<br />City's world. <br /> <br />A lake spreads out <br />Below me,<br />Shivering from the <br />The wind's breath,<br />The breath of winds<br />Coming to steal <br />All our words,<br />Leaving only the sound<br />Of meaningful force.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-74031222715126175402013-05-06T20:20:00.001-05:002013-05-06T20:21:15.164-05:00PoemWe had no doubt whose<br />Poems were better, so<br />We polled the two best<br />Poets that we know.<br /><br />And I said yours<br />And you said mine.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-2037433838549372242012-06-28T22:10:00.000-05:002012-06-28T22:10:00.089-05:00PoemOne pondered<br />How<br />We were all there<br />Same time<br />Same circumstance.<br /><br />And despite Kevin Costner<br />At my side<br />How you could be there<br />With your baseball cap<br />Bedazzled with<br />The Seeing Eye<br /><br />And yet not know<br />How<br />Your lesbian khaki shorts<br />Could invade our space<br />Even after we<br />Gave you the pink lighter<br />(Don't tell his mother)<br />To smoke a bad joint.<br /><br />Perhaps we must<br />And did<br />Judge you<br />Although our shorts<br />Were just the same.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-10454080192692940902012-06-24T19:45:00.000-05:002012-06-24T22:07:27.351-05:00PoemI told you this, brother<br />And it will always be true.<br />I will never know what you<br />Would have become.<br /><br />If your hair would have<br />Continued to tangle<br />Into unmanageable curls<br />After your voice stopped breaking.<br /><br />Or if you would have<br />Scored the touchdown <br />That would have made <br />Our father's heart soar.<br /><br />Or if, on some imaginary day<br />At my wedding, you would have<br />Cracked a bawdy joke<br />And brought the house down<br />With your blue eyes.<br /><br />In my dreams, you occasionally show up<br />With different faces<br />And you tell me some wisdom <br />From beyond, that I always lose<br />Upon waking.<br /><br />I told you this, but I know<br />This part to be true. <br />I have nothing but this tiny flower<br />From a Pennsylvania summer,<br />For a Pennsylvania grave.<br /><br />I miss you.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-66852712310120198122012-06-24T16:54:00.001-05:002012-06-24T16:54:54.612-05:00PoemI did not agree <br />With his choice of eulogy,<br />Even though he was a priest<br />And much more experienced<br />In that delivery.<br /><br />I did not want to be reminded<br />That our cousin was a sinner<br />While his children ran<br />Unknowingly around the pews<br />Blissful, unwavering.<br /><br />I did not want to be told<br />That people who were good<br />Were, in fact, not.<br />Nor that life is unfair<br />Because we sin.<br /><br />I knew the difference,<br />I could see it gleaming off<br />The sheen of his wife's<br />Chestnut curls <br />As she bowed her head and took this.<br /><br />I wanted to stand up and say<br />Life is unfair because<br />We are not immortal<br />And to have happiness<br />We must allow things to change<br />And with that change comes loss.<br />This is what was right.<br /><br />I wanted to say it, but then,<br />One of the children laughed<br />And that laughter <br />Drowned out his words<br />Because we all joined in.<br /><br />-EEG<br />Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-65901787709817815462012-06-24T15:57:00.004-05:002012-06-24T19:58:04.205-05:00PoemIt has been brought <br />To my attention<br />That perhaps I am<br />Writing too much <br />Poetry lately.<br /><br />I will not say<br />Who made this cruel observation.<br />Or maybe I will.<br />It was me.<br />I cannot bear <br />The sunshine today.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-39039672146838103482012-06-24T15:54:00.003-05:002012-06-24T20:03:26.992-05:00PoemThat night<br />We were standing <br />Under the streetlight<br />When he said<br /><br />You know, <br />Maybe the edges of<br />This halo<br />Mark the end of the world<br />And if we leave it<br />We will step<br />Into an abyss.<br /><br />And I said<br />That is <br />The most ridiculous <br />Thing I ever heard<br /><br />Even though <br />I knew that<br />It was not.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-83803740427560022922012-06-24T15:04:00.003-05:002012-06-24T16:55:28.589-05:00PoemI did not regret that July,<br />Although there was a grief here then<br />That held its spell in the form<br />Of a shaggy haired prince<br />And the disasters he left<br />In his wake.<br /><br />That summer <br />It would not rain.<br />The clouds were distant<br />And stingy.<br /><br />Perhaps the ground<br />Was calling for tears.<br />Perhaps that explained it.<br /><br />I did not regret that July<br />Even after I was alone.<br />Because I know that the ground<br />Needed what was mine.<br />And I freely gave.<br />Knowing then,<br />Later,<br />The ground would give back.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-58478526661519278882012-06-05T22:06:00.002-05:002012-06-24T14:56:31.595-05:00PoemWhen the trees grow so<br />You can no longer fight them<br />And they push their way <br />Into your window frame<br />Making new shadows <br />Where familiar patterns had<br />Once reserved their spots.<br /><br />Remember<br />To welcome them.<br />Study the new lessons<br />In their shade.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-36185007045581563212012-05-18T16:31:00.001-05:002012-05-18T16:32:09.454-05:00PoemMy jolly piece,<br />You may not go<br />When I hold your heavy<br />On days distant from silence<br />And words.<br /><br />Even if no laughter<br />Waves its daft paths<br />Through you,<br />I will give you all of mine<br />To remain.<br /><br />-EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-50002115851523661182011-11-20T18:39:00.002-06:002011-11-20T18:43:02.364-06:00Book Report<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Satanic Verses<br />Salman Rushdie</span><br /><br />I have a very dirty secret involving why it took me so long to read this book. Is it because I have a hard time with Rushdie's prose? Oh my no - it goes down like a rainbow flavored snow cone dolloped with an odd dash of spices guaranteed to keep you hooked all the way to the last drop. Is it because I had issues understanding the various parables and the confoundry of a guy thinking he is the Angel Gibreel, while maybe actually being the angel Gibreel. Nah-uh, fantasy intersects with reality more than most people are comfortable believing. Did I find his female characters unappealing? Nope, Rushdie comes up with some of the strongest, most complex and real female characters out there (Alleluia Cone immediately comes to mind, with her fallen arches, and conflicting obsessions).<br /><br />My dirty secret is that I have been using this book as a polling point for Thursday nights at a local neighborhood eatery. Because I have never had a night there when I was reading it, and someone did not have something to say about it.<br /><br />The hilarious thing is that everyone who had something to say about it, had not actually read the book. They just know about the fatwah.<br /><br />"Oh, is that the book where he had to go into hiding after it was published?"<br /><br />"Yeah, do you know why that is?"<br /><br />And therein lies my guilt, as I began examining the various ideas of just why that is from my friendly neighborhood barflies. This is what they came up with:<br /><br />Rushdie likes men.<br /><br />Nope, way too many hot chick notches under his belt.<br /><br />Rushdie was calling for the assassination of the ayatollah of Iran.<br /><br />Nope, it ended up being the other way around.<br /><br />Rushdie discovered a new section of the Koran where women had equal rights.<br /><br />Kind of ... but not really.<br /><br />I held a vast sense of superiority over these people, being as I was actually reading the book. But when I turned the last page and closed it, I realized I really had no idea either.<br /><br />So, I had to wikipedia it. And the answer was so obvious, I completely missed it. Apparently some Muslims take their religion super seriously. So much for my literary acumen. Ah well.<br /><br />It was not an effort wasted. Although not as fluid and nonstop as Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses still offered up a vareity of gems, anecdotes, fables, legends and occasionally Shakespearean-styled comedies of errors (with Shakespeare nicely credited for that effort). I must read that I'm glad I must did read.<br /><br />Now, onto something new to poll the Thursday night crew with.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-48540509627311681302011-11-20T18:37:00.000-06:002011-11-20T18:38:05.932-06:00Song"And if you think I've gone too long<br />Listen, the sky will sing this song<br />As it burns up all the memories<br />That flow, like water, out of me"<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zVjl9RgPc5Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-34901983538384170002011-11-15T22:14:00.003-06:002011-11-15T22:16:38.718-06:00Song"Je ne veux pas travailler<br />Je ne veux pas dejeuner<br />Je veux seulement oublier,<br />Et puis, je fume."<br /><br />[I don't want to work / I don't want to lunch / I want only to forget/ and then I smoke].<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pp-wmEKWLSo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-66796549358433044142011-09-26T20:00:00.002-05:002011-09-26T20:04:19.920-05:00Book Report<span style="font-weight:bold;">Look Homeward, Angel<br />Thomas Wolfe</span><br /><br />Very rarely do I hit a wall with a book that makes me think I will never finish it. I inherited this book from my parents, who inherited it from my Nana. It has been sitting on my nightstand for over half a year, where it rests while I turn to other reads for a break. It is currently in seven different pieces. Last Sunday, as I was reading it in my favorite breakfast spot, a page actually tore loose and landed smack in the middle of my oatmeal. Pieces of the binding, resembling dead moth parts seem to magically litter my floor. "I thought," groaned my dad as he handed it over, "I would never finish this stupid book."<br /><br />"Is it worth reading?"<br /><br />"Yep."<br /><br />In short, the book had become - to echo a brilliant review on goodreads that made me keep going like a marathoner on the 23rd mile - the goddamn bane of my existence. It was also one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. As I finally set it down for good I actually found myself sighing poignantly, then looking around pretty embarrassed.<br /><br />Plot? Thomas Wolfe doesn't need a plot. He just needs a good dysfunctional drunk North Carolina family, a misunderstood genius, southern whores, slightly crazed boarders, tobacco and lots of racial epithets. He needs his hero to wander around a graveyard spilling out gushes of morbid soliloquy strewn with masses of descript mountain evenings and overtones of escapism. He needs the harsh realities of loving your family so passionately you slowly kill them, in a way that manages to be so macabre it's funny. Plot, pshaw. Thomas Wolfe is a poet, pure and simple.<br /><br />For example:<br /><br />"And left alone to sleep within a shuttered room, with the thick sunlight printed in bars upon the floor, unfathomable loneliness and sadness crept through him: he saw his life down the solemn vista of a forest aisle, and he knew he would always be the sad one: caged in that little round of skull, imprisoned in that beating and most secret heart, his life must always walk down lonely passages. Lost. He understood that men were forever strangers to one another, that no one ever comes really to know any one, that imprisoned in the dark womb of our mother, we come to life without having seen her face, that we are given to her arms a stranger, and that, caught in that insoluble prison of being, we escape it never, no matter what arms may clasp us, what mouth may kiss us, what heart may warm us. Never, never, never, never, never."<br /><br />Yep, existentialism just had an orgasm. A self-indulgent one, but still.<br /><br />I really have no desire to find out what happens to Eugene Gant after this novel. I mean, I could, since there is a sequel, but he's not a particularly likeable fella. I like the thought of him exiting stage left, looking back longingly at mistakes he would never have been able to correct. If he turns around - well, then the whole title stops making sense.<br /><br />Keep it around. It grows on you. You'll never look at October leaves shaking on the trees the same.<br /><br />Five stars, disbelievingly.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-61183392602035434282011-09-13T19:27:00.002-05:002011-09-13T19:30:00.725-05:00Book Report<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Virgin Suicides<br />Jeffrey Eugenides</span><br /><br />Reading Eugenides is like being trapped in someone's nightmare. Someone's nightmare that is so aesthetically pleasing you don't want to leave. And he definitely knows the formula to keep you locked in.<br /><br />Centering around the tragic mystery of the suicides of five sisters, one would expect that Euginedes gives us resolutions and answers, but none fit, making it all the more tragic. Expecting the usual macabre plot devices, you continue turning the pages, rushing through the onslaught of hormonal luminescence that engulfs the entire narrative. Were teenage girls ever so obsessively idolized while their physical flaws so excessively studied? Do men really lack the capacity to understand the harsh realities of "trapped beaver" (my favorite phrase in the book)? Is self-destruction always contagious? At what point is escape impossible? Eugenides makes the Lisbon story resemble an nostalgic ghost tale, stringing us along with its horrible beauty and scaring us silly while we want to listen to more.<br /><br />Haunting. And, like its characters, finishing too soon.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-49796469583577039642011-08-28T21:15:00.003-05:002011-08-28T21:17:21.882-05:00SongI have a terrible habit of telling people my heart is full when I've had a few, when I should really just say "this has been great." I blame this song.
<br />
<br />"Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
<br />Underact - express depression
<br />Ah, but Bunnie I loved you
<br />I was tired again
<br />I've tried again, and
<br />
<br />Now my heart is full
<br />Now my heart is full
<br />And I just can't explain
<br />So I won't even try to"
<br />
<br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-Lx1-WsQ1eI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-3702519184753808722011-08-27T21:09:00.004-05:002011-08-28T21:20:47.978-05:00PoemWives say to me
<br />With their jeweled hands
<br />On top of mine
<br />That there will be space
<br />If I just wait
<br />
<br />And I study my naked hands
<br />Beneath theirs
<br />On the countertop between us
<br />And say:
<br />
<br />Here, there is already space
<br />Like a wave
<br />That borrows your balance
<br />So you can see what lies
<br />On the shore beneath
<br />
<br />Suspending organs,
<br />like flotsam floating
<br />Spreading them out
<br />onto other things that sparkle
<br />Expensively
<br />
<br />EEGStar Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-83958355546218754082011-08-27T20:49:00.002-05:002011-08-27T20:50:44.036-05:00StatsEvery once in awhile, this blog sends me a report telling me what people googled that landed them here.
<br />
<br />Today: "female desperation" and "getting messy wearing satin nightgown."
<br />
<br />God.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-73237540953447637242011-08-26T22:04:00.002-05:002011-08-26T22:06:51.495-05:00Song"Is that all there is?
<br />If that's all there is, my friends,
<br />Then let's keep dancing ..."
<br />
<br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5BjhJLhSbYg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<br />Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-43940317020881526822011-08-26T21:02:00.005-05:002011-08-26T21:29:20.535-05:00LakeIn the continuance of missing North Carolina, I am having a cheap beer this evening after ducking out of a social engagement, which I decided was not going to be that engaging. I need some quiet these days, work is overstimulating and requires all my analytical skills. Pushing those analytical skills further to navigate a crowd at a concert on a night where I have to stay sober to get back to the overstimulating work tomorrow seem doable until I started to randomly itch all over and realized I was probably allergic to that task.
<br />
<br />Hurricane Irene, lend us some rain, baby. For the ground is dry, and we itch with crankiness.
<br />
<br />In my party fridge, alongside a sad defunct plastic case of baby spinach, sits a lone PBR left over from a tubing trip a couple of months ago. Allowing myself this one little recompense, it occurs to me that whenever I accidentally get a mouthful of Hyco Lake, it tastes a little bit like this. Light, warm and cheap. It probably also tastes like a lot of strangers' urine. There, I had to go and ruin the whole poetic PBR analogy.
<br />
<br />Our neighbor at Hyco never used his shower. He kept stacks of Ivory soap bars on the deck next to cooler perpetually full of Miller Lite. Mornings and evenings he took his baths in the water. "I'd come up and kiss you sweetheart," he would yell from below as I pulled into the long treacherous drive after 14 hours behind the wheel, "but I'm buck naked."
<br />
<br />During dry summers, what looked like soap scum appeared for miles around the lake marking the water level.
<br />
<br />The swimmer is now dead and gone, but I am told the soap scum remains as a fitting tribute. I am missing it and the source this year, having been denied a few days back in our wilderness. It's not like me to miss North Carolina so much. I blame being in a city for too long. Despite its green spaces, New Orleans can be stifling in August with the heat and people. I feel heavy, drowsy and clumsy and have a strange longing to actually walk up a hill. The one thing New Orleans lacks to make me happy.
<br />
<br />Maybe I am thinking of North Carolina as Irene hits its shores. Today I read a news article where a sheriff in Morehead City made a point to advertise the number of body bags he had ordered to all the residents who were insisting on staying. Unlike many Katrina victims, these people actually have places to go but North Carolinians have a stubborn love of their property.
<br />
<br />"We may have to drag your dead body out of the yard when all's said and done," said the sheriff.
<br />
<br />"Well," they probably think, "at least it's <span style="font-style:italic;">our</span> yard."
<br />Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-6863466068173925352011-08-26T20:35:00.003-05:002011-08-26T20:52:29.119-05:00Roncesvalles, May 2004Somewhere along the long trail over the Pyrenees from St Jean Pied de Port, I lost all of the electrolytes in my body. They trickled out slowly through my sweat and in my well meaning way I drank two gallons of water, which only made the situation worse. In denial, I went to stand at the pilgrim's mass and promptly passed out into the arms of the Welshman next to me. I had officially made my first Camino friend.
<br />
<br />Afterwards, we ate trout and drank dark rich wine for five euros. He told me where he was from. It took a long time to say it. I made him write it down. The slip of paper was too small to fit all of the consonants. We laughed.
<br />
<br />"Did you see Roland's battlefield?" he asked me.
<br />
<br />"Where was it?"
<br />
<br />"The trailer park."
<br />
<br />"Ah." It makes sense. In America there's a plaque for every little thing, every little step. "So-and-so slept here." And yet, on the battleground of Roncevalles, a trailer park. Europe can mix history and the present like beer and liquor. Hundreds can have died awful medieval deaths right where you sleep. I think of my own tiny place above graves, a stone's throw away from Staromestka. Executions, demonstrations, burnings, Franz Kafka's father's shop, the Jakubska church with the arm of a Saint that is most probably a very large and now inedible sausage. The road to Santiago runs down my own street in the CR, but perhaps this isn't as symbolic as I want it to be. All roads run into each other eventually unless there is water between. And even then ...
<br />
<br />The aubergue at Roncesvalles sleeps two hundred people and the bunk beds are shoved together so you spend the night next to a stranger. My first shower on the camino is cold, but a shower seems like an enormous luxury after a college full of long and smelly hikes. I have Danko's sleeping bag with me, probably too heavy for the summer, but it smells like pepper and lavender, the smell of our place. Fearing the curse of more snoring Germans before a 35 mile hike the next day I shove earplugs so far into my ears that I awake gasping with pain to pull them out again. The sudden roar of sleepers in the large space is deafening and disorienting. I walk outside, into my first 3am in Spain to look at the stars.Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-88889284017021376312011-08-22T18:04:00.004-05:002011-08-22T19:10:27.089-05:00BackupAs I'm getting older, I'm losing my guy friends by the dozens. This is irritating because I have always been more comfortable hanging around men (less talk of feelings, more wit battles) than women. My closest girl friends tend to be women who "act like men" - no matter how backwards and ignorant that sounds. Yes, you can be as girly as you want, but if you shy away from sharp observations and harsh truths, I am going to have a hard time trusting you. The extra vagina in the mix just adds to the problem. Because my menstrual cycle just really wants to fit in, and I get tired of ovulating with all of my friends at once.
<br />
<br />I am not losing my guy friends to disease. Rather I am losing them to other women, and such is life. (For the most part), I like my guy friends' wives and sometimes I even like their kids. But because I grew up in a family where infidelity was all too often a reality, I am careful about being out with married guy friends alone lest it hurt their wives or make them worry. Sadly, even when things are totally innocent and you're just swapping great public fart stories, there's now a family factor in there and, despite my at times unconventional outlook on love, I am rather conventional in my outlook on marriage and what it means when two people promise to love each other forever EXCLUSIVELY. So the karma fairies don't get me if I ever decide to walk down the aisle.
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<br />But this post isn't really about grieving the loss of male friends to marriage and their happily ever after lives. And I certainly am not discounting my female friends who have brought me safely through many a rough patch in the last year.
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<br />Rather this post is about the backup. I think everyone has them - the friend that desperation might one day make you think "Hey, sex with them might not be that bad and I already know their irritating habits." And so, maybe one night you both have a few and decide that if and when you are both old (40) and still single, you might think of actually falling in love with each other. Which is fine. Like a benzo, it calms down the worry over the future so you can get on with your life actually meeting and liking other people whose dark pasts are a complete mystery and will hopefully remain that way.
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<br />However, there is one requirement for the backup situation and it is that THE FEELING MUST BE MUTUAL. You must mutually be on each other's backup lists. There needs to be an understanding, in writing if need be.
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<br />I have a reason for this. It is most disconcerting to realize that you are on someone's backup list, that you would never in a million years agree to back up into.
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<br />In fact, downright insulting in some instances. Let me elaborate:
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<br />Despite the narcissistic tone of this blog, I am, as it were, actually a pretty decent catch. I am also single at the moment. This is a feat accomplished by few of my caliber, and usually I am proud of it because I can honestly say I would be a miserable cow had I married anyone I had ever dated and I think it took me some guts to realize that and walk away before I took the step of telling everyone my marital issues over facebook stati.
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<br />However, in the past year, I've had several people from various social circles sort of "check in" with me. Which would normally be fine and a little flattering, whether or not I liked them back. But these people do it in such a way that it's obvious they are putting some energy into trying to keep me there, rather than asking me out right now. Almost like I'm a sure bet or something.
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<br />Fair enough, we've all had delusions of grandeur. But these are also people that I would never in a trillion years even think about dating. In fact more than 80% of them are people I would be terrified to have to spend time with alone. Their crime: disregarding the mutuality of back-upedness by having the gumption to think that I would be right there waiting for them, when I find them about as attractive as a mole on a walrus's backside.
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<br />That high level of conceit coming from that low level of male really irks me because I don't have any way of dealing with it constructively. I am perceptive to the point of paranoia. I can read between the lines of these kinds of communications really well. But I am not sure what to do about them. If they were an explicit, "hey, let's hang out sometime" from a guy who I've never gone out with - easy to deal with. Say "sure, one of these days" and then don't and usually they get the picture and probably move on to someone else.
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<br />But these irritating fellas don't do that. They write me messages that border on stalkerish, with an apparent assumption that we'll be together when they get around to it. And I've left flummoxed as to how to approach this. I can't say in response to their assumptive cheese, "hey, I don't want to date you, EVER" because then they get a pass and can say "I never asked you out. Whoa." And you're thinking, "yes, you did, because I just forwarded your message to ten of my vagina friends who all independently confirmed that you think you actually have a sporting chance of locking me into a relationship whenever you feel like it."
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<br />Now that I am writing about this ("I write to find out what I'm thinking about"), I realize the part that really bothers me is I have a hard enough time finding someone I actually like enough to have sitting in my first chair, and yet there are these bastards out there who actually think they get to have me in their second chair, apparently without any concern as to whether or not I am interested in sitting in it.
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<br />Or on a deeper level it's about American society where fat jerks on TV always have the hot smart wives and a lot of these men bugging me seem to have the same mentality. That they are entitled to just keep a thumb on something, and the something doesn't mind being thumbed no matter how undeserving the, uh, thumber.
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<br />So, I just don't respond, which never seems to discourage this behavior, and at times makes it worse. (One, for example, always starts off his emails to me with "haven't talked to you in awhile." That is true, because I blocked you on facebook and never write back. Hint much?) And lately it's been happening so often (I guess their marital pool is thinning too) that I am thinking I need a good game plan to convey the fact they are pompous douchebags that make me uncomfortable with this unflattering display of territory marking.
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<br />Looking for suggestions, penis and vagina alike.
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<br />Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-60678213751786519042011-08-19T23:33:00.004-05:002011-08-19T23:48:07.108-05:00Song(s)The Poe album "Haunted" carried me through a long dreary winter in Prague. With headphones from a CD walkman pressed close to my ears, occasionally I would burst out singing the sad sick lyrics and then look apologetically over at my over-accomplished boyfriend, hunched over at his desk learning his fifth language.
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<br />"Sorry, Danielicko."
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<br />He would grin and stretch out his pale athletic frame and then sing the lyric back to me.
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<br />"Ja vim, zlaticku. You're <a href="http://youtu.be/gUmYzOms1_A">haunted</a>. You're <a href="http://youtu.be/TAI__h-Bxzo">wild</a>."
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<br />"And a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E8Y62k0KYs&playnext=1&list=PL9DD15965C78719D2">sweet Spanish doll</a>?"
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<br />"You are not Spanish."
<br />Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310424523532647993.post-68666572545109057872011-08-16T19:47:00.001-05:002011-08-16T19:49:47.313-05:00Song"Nakedness (nakedness)
<br />A flying lesson
<br />Tattered dress
<br />Sunburned chest
<br />You will pay for your excessive charm
<br />With a boy who knows
<br />less than he thinks
<br />Drinks up his expensive drinks
<br />Be careful with the details of the war"
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<br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AD6DleIlK2E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Star Kickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08609828342733639243noreply@blogger.com0